


Not Trying to Make Headlines

by RurouniHime



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Artist Steve Rogers, But no one knows it, De-Serumed Steve Rogers, Don't copy to another site, Gift Fic, Identity Porn, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Letters, M/M, Marvel Trumps Hate 2018, News Media, One Night Stands, Palladium Poisoning, Pining, tony is still iron man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-25 15:29:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20726498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: It's just an art show. No big deal if the rich and totally-out-of-his-league guy Steve slept with once a year ago shows up or not. Really.(Written for ishipallthings, who won second place bid for my offer in Marvel Trumps Hate 2018.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishipallthings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishipallthings/gifts).

> For ishipallthings, who generously donated as part of Marvel Trumps Hate 2018 and won my second place fic! ishipallthings asked for a no-powers Steve, a Tony who is secretly Iron Man, and "so I know we haven’t talked in like, two years, and that things ended <strike>pretty badly</strike> between us but what the fuck do you mean you’re engaged to be married" AU. Other prompt ideas included artist!Steve and penpal-style letter exchanges, so I got some of that in, too. ishipallthings, I hope you like your story!!
> 
> With blink-and-you'll-miss-it guest appearances by real live people like Anderson Cooper, Zara Beard, and Ellen DeGeneres. None of them know about this or did anything like this. I'm not making any money off of them.
> 
> Will be updated daily or every other day (because I'm headed out of town briefly tomorrow) until done. Title comes from a quote by Amy Schumer.

_ **MODERN DAY DAVID DARES TO TOPPLE GOLIATH-IN-CHIEF** _

_ **…** _

_ **NOT JUST A KID FROM BROOKLYN: THE ART OF STEVE ROGERS** _

_~_  
~  
~ 

_Now_

The gallery is absolutely packed. And it’s like scrolling through E!Online with five computers at once; Steve has never seen so many faces he recognizes in a room full of complete strangers. He pulls out his inhaler, gives it a shake and takes a dose, blinking as he holds his breath. When he can’t stand it anymore, he lets it out. “I don’t think I’m ready for this.”

Behind him, Bucky snorts. “This? This is a madhouse. No one on earth would be ready for this.”

Steve steps back from the curtain that separates them from the masses, brushes down the front of his suit—not Armani, not even a little bit—then grabs the curtain again and peeks out. “Oh, god. That’s Anderson Cooper eating a canape.”

“He’d better be. That crap on the green trays was specifically catered for him.” 

Cooper looks _good._ Everyone out there is sparkling and sleek, dressed to the nines, as though Steven Grant Rogers, recently unknown editorial cartoonist from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, warrants anything this extravagant. But there’s one face he still doesn’t see, and that face is about to be fashionably late. “You sure you sent the invitation?”

He doesn’t have to look to know that Bucky is rolling his eyes. “The invitation was sent. And the special cocktail mixers ordered—”

“Without the alcohol?”

“—_yes,_ so virginal we had to ask permission from the diocese to even allow them in the same building as half these ingrates, _and_ the organic blueberries, _and_ the shawarma bar. Steve.” Bucky hauls him away from the curtain and gives his bowtie a quick tug. “Would you relax? He’ll be here.”

“Maybe not,” Steve says, fiddling with his inhaler. “I mean, I haven’t had only good publicity. I’m not exactly popular in certain circles.”

“Understatement. But neither is he, and something tells me neither of you are all that fussed about being popular with the Trumpeteers.”

Steve’s cheeks heat. Honestly, he hadn’t predicted any of this. He’d just drawn a political cartoon for the Times. The Times rarely picked his work up anyway; too cerebral, they said, and coming from them, Steve had a hard time not taking it as a compliment. But they’d picked up that one with gusto. Steve had gone happily home with the rest of his rent, and the next morning, his cartoon was all over the damned internet. 

So the Times picked up more of his cartoons. Within a week, Steven Grant Rogers from Crown Heights, Brooklyn became a household name. Someone leaked a photo of him—skinny and stiff-jawed, straight from the humanitarian aid rally he’d gotten arrested at in November—and then people were stopping him in the grocery store, on the subway, walking through the park. Exclusivity contracts that Steve wouldn’t sign, interviews about comic panels Steve had inked solely to pay for his asthma meds, galleries fishing for a portfolio Steve was still desperately slinging together.

Though, to be perfectly fair, the only one to blame was Trump himself. One irate tweet too many by the commander in chief and Steve’s entire life had flipped on its head. Really, did he expect Steve to take that crap lying down? Someone had to get some parental locks on that man’s phone.

But it _is_ kind of fun being the thorn in the side of America’s biggest bully.

“Hey, if the shoe fits,” Steve says, and Bucky chucks him on the shoulder.

“There he is. My best bud.”

All well and good—Steve couldn’t ask for a better friend—but it still doesn’t solve the main issue. “Buck, there is a blockade around the whole building. Two precincts are here, and I swear I saw SWAT on the corner when I came in.” The hate mail has certainly not been fun, even less so when the people close to him started getting it, too. As a result, his first ever gallery showing is a madhouse. “Oh, god, he’s not coming, he’s the CEO of a multi-billion dollar green energy company. After that threat someone sent to CNN—” 

“Please, he’s got an armored, flying bodyguard, doesn’t he?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Steve ran a shaking hand over his hair. “He’s not gonna risk it.”

Bucky frowns. “He will if he knows what’s good for him.”

*

_Then_

Steve had never thought he would catch the eye of Tony Stark.

Stark existed in the ephemeral realm of the society pages. Television, gossip blurbs, the occasional radio or podcast soundbite. He was handsome, rich, devastatingly charming to some and breathlessly cutting to most, but above all, completely untouchable. 

What made him stand out was that he was also _good._ He’d dumped the weapons conglomerate that had made his family infamous and turned all his considerable smarts toward green energy; he held hundreds of patents, but ‘faster,’ ‘cleaner,’ and ‘more efficient’ were his real trademarks. The news day was never complete unless it included a right-wing senator that Stark had pissed off or the latest rival company to attempt dominion over Stark’s assets. There was a lot to see: Stark was always right in the thick of things, with a ready legal statute or scientific proof to put down the upstarts. It seemed, incredibly, that he really did design most of the inventions he was known for, and Steve could certainly appreciate an intelligent man. When the prolific death threats had finally culminated in a near-successful assassination attempt, Stark had simply hired the services of his own (nanotech armored!) personal bodyguard and kept right on keeping on.

All of this, Steve had _noticed._ Given the circumstances, it was extraordinarily difficult not to carry a torch for Tony Stark. But that was all it was ever going to be, until one night in May when Steve found himself in midtown, at the end of a bar so swanky he had no business even glancing at it out of the corner of his eye.

The only reason Steve was inside at the bar at all was a combination of polite wheedling and aw-shucks finesse. Steve had desperately needed a payphone, of which the city had none, and had talked his jeans-wearing, ratty-jacketed way into the foyer of an upscale club off of Bryant Park. He wasn’t ‘the whole package’ by any means, but he thought he had a nice enough face, and his mother had always sworn he could charm the bloomers off a nun if he wanted.

Steve did _not_ want. What Steve wanted was a phone to call Bucky and tell him the trains to Brooklyn were shut down again and did he still have an active Lyft profile and, incidentally, any money in his bank account to pay for the ride? So, naturally, Steve was standing right there when a mouthy patron in sleek gray pinstripes started harassing the woman serving him a glass of Chardonnay more expensive than Steve’s entire dinnerware set.

Steve, being Steve, couldn’t leave that alone, and he was already on his feet, so. Unfortunately, like most people in New York, the guy, once he got sick of Steve’s reprimands and staggered up from his barstool, was taller than him. He threw a punch, but he was pretty drunk. Steve threw a punch back and connected. The guy hit the bar, sending tumblers crashing, and came swinging off it to catch Steve on the chin. There was no bar for Steve to hit, just a table and then the floor, but he only dropped to one knee, and by then the beleaguered bartender had called for reinforcements.

“What business is it of yours?” the guy yelled into Steve’s face as a bouncer the size of Lady Liberty dragged his drunk ass toward the door. “I’m going to sue you. You know what, I’m suing you right now, you little punk, watch me, I got my lawyer on speed dial. One tap of my thumb—hey, could you just let go of my arm for a second here, Schwarzenegger?”

“Hammer,” a voice interrupted down the bar where Steve wasn’t quite tall enough to see over the onlookers, “you’re trending on YouTube.”

Hammer, as he apparently was called, _could_ see over the surrounding crowd. His face went an unattractive shade of puce. “Did you—Stark, did you put me on YouTube? You asshole, that’s libel, I’ll sue you too!”

“Slander, Justin. It’s only libel if it’s written.” The bodiless speaker let out a surprised _ooh._ “Would you look at that, your stocks are flatlining. Dropping like anvils, wow, that’s, I’m staring at Corp right now and, oh—oh—dead. As a doornail, that’s too bad. Hey, now, let’s see what Industries is doing.”

“Damn you to hell, Stark! I’m gonna—watch it, buddy, this is Gucci—”

“Down, down, oh, down again. Better shake your thang, buddy, or there’ll be nothing left. Good news though, the Twits all love you. Hashtag picksonlittleguys, hashtag whatadouche… Eh, that one’s a little on the nose.”

“Fuck you, Tony! Fuck you and all your stupid—”

The bouncer succeeded in chucking this Hammer person out the door, and the crowd clapped before filtering back to their seats. Steve let out a breath. Then the bouncer turned around, eyeing Steve up in his distinctly blue-collar work clothes where he stood surrounded by the remains of the beer steins that his fall had taken to the ground with him and, well, they were about to throw Steve out, too, when—

“He’s with me.”

Tony Stark, signaling with half a martini from a few stools away.

At first, Steve thought, _no._ No chance was _the_ Tony Stark watching him, elbow propped on the bar, tie draped over his shoulders and gin swirling in one hand, as Steve awkwardly brushed himself off and straightened his jacket. Nothing to be done about the aromatic stain soaking his knee. But Steve was no quitter, then or now, so he raked his hair back into place, and by then there was no doubt in his mind that he was facing _the_ Tony Stark.

And that he was a little lost in big, brown eyes.

Those eyes slid over him like molasses, and then Stark made a sound and reached out, touching the side of Steve’s face. “Jeez, kiddo.”

“Not a kid.” 

Steve knew his voice was deeper than people expected, and indeed Stark’s eyebrows shot right up. He looked Steve over again. “I can see that.”

He patted the stool nearest beside him and swiveled back to the bar. “So. Come to clean up the joint, Superman?”

“I,” Steve started, and blushed. “He was an asshole.” He hefted himself up on the stool, feeling out the crack in his lower lip with his tongue. Stark caught his wince and handed him a napkin.

“Succinct,” Stark said. “And the gospel truth. Here, put this on it.”

He gave Steve his half-drunk martini, and Steve stared dumbly at it for a whole three seconds before realizing he was meant to put the alcohol on the cut. Steve cleared his throat, not quite looking at Stark, and knocked back a sip. It burned like blazes; Steve hissed but kept drinking, and eventually the fire tapered down into this numb sort of relief and the sting in his throat got more comfortably warm, and he felt a lot better about his choices for the evening.

More so when he looked up and found he was being stared at. Avidly. 

Steve wiped his lip, careful of the wound, then blinked at the martini glass. His mouth, where Tony Stark’s mouth had been. Tony Stark. “Sorry,” he rushed, and handed the glass back, but what was that going to do now? Stark took it without a word and signaled the bartender like he did so every day. 

Maybe he did.

“I’ll, uh.” Steve thumbed over his shoulder and tried to find a way off the stool that didn’t involve him falling into the bar. 

Stark frowned. “Stay.”

Steve stared at him, and Stark stared right back, and they were mere feet apart and his eyes were _really_ intense. Steve huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Sorry. It’s just… you’re Tony Stark.”

“That’s my name.” But he didn’t look happy, and that’s what had Steve shelving his original response, which had everything to do with himself, in favor of raging curiosity.

He should thank Stark and go home. But he couldn’t. Something about the man looked fragile, almost ghostly. Nothing like his publicity promos. Like if Steve glanced away for even a moment, when he looked back, Stark would be gone.

“Rough night?”

Stark snorted, but his smile when he slid it Steve’s way was appreciative and distinctly heated. “Got a lot better when you showed up.” Steve’s heart thudded, until Stark grabbed his newly delivered martini. “Not every day someone throws a punch at Justin Hammer.”

“He started it.” Steve knew he said it too often. And he should probably know who Justin Hammer was, but he just… didn’t.

“Oh, he definitely did. You’ve got yourself a good right hook.”

Steve smiled wanly at the bar top. “Had some practice. I get in a lot of fights.”

“Defending the little guy, I assume. Littler guy. You seem like a do-gooder. The question is,” Stark sighed and turned all the way to face Steve, “do you also have a good lawyer?”

“I…” He’d never needed a lawyer, never even considered the consequences of his flailings against the city’s minor injustices. No one had ever cared before. But Steve had never punched a billionaire before either, which he was guessing Hammer might be, someone who could throw down a few grand like it was pocket change and subsequently ruin another person’s life. His stomach grew tight; the gin turned queasy in his guts, and his lungs started their interminable cinching. 

“Hey.” 

He looked up and found Stark leant in close. A finger with a dull edge of…oil, maybe, at the edge of the nail, trailed the length of Steve’s forearm. 

“The answer is, yes. You do.”

Steve gaped, then shook his head. “I can’t ask you for that.”

“Of course not. I’m forcing it on you, if it becomes necessary.” Stark smirked, definitely heated, and Steve’s belly rolled in an entirely different way. “But it won’t. Hammer’s a blowhard. King of the blowhards, actually. Even outstrips me.”

“You’re not a blowhard.” And that may have been a little too forceful, but Steve couldn’t exactly take it back. He struggled not to look away as Stark’s eyes swung to him. Stark’s eyebrows were high again, and a healthy flush had crept into his cheeks, making him look indolent and content, the way he slouched on the stool. But his eyes sparked, darted, flicked over Steve’s face, no doubt taking in the furious blush. Steve cleared his throat. “You’re doing amazing things for this city.” 

And that was supposed to make it better, but instead it just sounded embarrassingly earnest, a kid with a crush. Which wasn’t the truth anymore because in the last ten minutes, Steve’s crush had been swelling dangerously toward a straight up infatuation.

“The establishment begs to differ.” Stark sounded amused, and it just stoked Steve’s irritation all the further. 

“The establishment doesn’t care about the everyday working person. They don’t care who loses their jobs because of a brand new administrative complex, or who gets kicked out of their familial homes because the mayor wants to ‘clean up the neighborhood,’ make it more palatable for the glitterati—”

“The glitterati, huh?”

“—just to get them to come spend their thousands on tiny tacos and plant-based burger patties. I mean, look at what they’re doing to the Lower East Side. They claim green initiatives, eco-friendly buildings, power sources, but there’s a price to that and it’s astronomical, and they just shrug and say, hey, them’s the breaks! This is the cost of saving the planet! All people want to do is live and eat and work and keep their families safe and not starving, and if they can do it cheaply without the guilt of also screwing up the environment, that’s—that’s a lot of unnecessary stress and self-hatred gone. That’s peace of mind they can’t afford. _Couldn’t_ afford, until you came along. What you’ve done for them—The establishment doesn’t give two shakes about that or them. You do.”

Stark’s gaze was beyond heated now, fixed heavily on Steve’s face. Every two seconds, his eyes would drop to Steve’s mouth before dragging back up again, and it really was getting hard to concentrate. 

“Sweet mother of god,” Stark muttered. At least that’s what Steve thought he said. A smile ticked at the corners of Stark’s delectable mouth, and Steve had always, always loved the crisp lines of that beard, the defined angles, the almost-too-much about it, like the taste of Tom Kha Gai or Angelina Jolie’s beauty. But he’d never been close enough to see the fine hairs, the smooth skin beneath, the play of tendon and muscle at Stark’s jaw. 

And Stark leaned even closer. “Oh, don’t stop. Talk politics to me, baby.”

Steve cleared his throat again. Buck had told him over and over to learn when to put his damned soap box away, and now Steve’s face and throat were flaming and it had nothing to do with having just gotten socked in the jaw, and Tony Stark, richest man in the city if not the country—if not the world—was looking at him like he was the next hit of an indescribable high. 

Steve wasn’t used to being… appreciated. For his looks or for his big mouth.

“I, uh.” He licked his lips and watched Stark’s eyes follow the motion. “Sorry. I get carried away.”

Stark shrugged and took mercy on him, turning back to his drink. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

“What would you call it?”

“Empowering.”

Steve swallowed. Now it was his turn to trace his eyes over Stark, and Stark let him: tousled hair with a little gray, sharp nose, large and low-lidded eye in profile the color of earth. White shirt with that tie draped like a forgotten scarf, pale throat trailing down to the hint of chest, bespoke trousers that fit just so, legs that kept on _going_ but finished off, incredibly, with scuffed red Converse. Steve stared at those for a moment. The red was bright and cherried, the same color as the armor of Stark’s bodyguard. Who was conspicuously missing. “Don’t you usually, uh. Where’s Iron Man?”

Stark snorted. “Who cares?”

Steve frowned. “You don’t like him?”

“As my CEO always says, doesn’t matter what I like.” He toasted nothing. “Safety first.”

But not tonight. The itch that had been niggling since he’d first seen Stark sitting there on the stool, that sense of ephemera, of impermanence—that itch began to scratch more insistently. “You deserve to be proud,” Steve murmured. “His armor is… Well, it’s a work of art.”

Stark paused, studying Steve. He looked down at his martini. “Maybe I just haven’t seen him in the right light lately.”

Steve had spent a lot of the past year drawing Iron Man. Besides being Tony Stark’s appointed bodyguard—and didn’t that make you think twice about messing with a fella?—he was kind of… well, a vigilante. Steve wasn’t really sure how he felt about that, but the armor was an artist’s wet dream. Sleek, smooth, glistening gold and silver with shiny, rich red… The man or whomever was inside it moved like silk, like he’d been born flying, and the bright blue of the repulsors caught the eye like nothing else. The city bigwigs weren’t exactly endeared to Iron Man’s propensity to thunder in and knock down thugs trying to make off with old ladies’ purses or magnetize the guns right out of shooters’ hands before they could squeeze the trigger, but no one whom Iron Man had ever helped was anything but adoring, so it was really just an ideology issue Steve had and that never stopped him from doodling.

It occurred to Steve for the first time, though, that maybe the selection of bodyguards hadn’t exactly been Stark’s choice. “He’s beautiful.”

Something spasmed, a tightness around Stark’s eyes. He took another drink and absently rubbed his chest. Steve’s eyes caught on the movement, on delicate fabric shifting over the skin beneath.

“Hey,” Stark said, swinging around to face him, knees akimbo so that his trousers stretched beautifully across his front. “Wanna get out of here?”

Steve didn’t get propositioned often, but Bucky did, and _that_ was a proposition. He glanced behind himself instinctively and caught a flicker of that smile when he turned back. He opened his mouth, but Stark beat him to it, reaching again to brush Steve’s heat-swollen cheek. 

“Yes, you,” Stark murmured. “Who else would I be talking to?”

_Pretty much anyone here,_ Steve nearly said. But he wasn’t stupid, wasn’t about to point out someone else’s shortsightedness if it detracted from his own gain. He got up belatedly as Stark rose from his stool, tipping a nod to the bartender. No currency was exchanged. Steve tugged his jacket straight, heart hammering. 

At the doorway, however, Stark stopped and looked back at him, eyebrows high. Steve shuffled, awkward, then jerked his head at the door. “Well? We goin’?”

If Stark’s smile had been beautiful, his grin knocked Steve breathless.

There was no car, just Stark, walking down the dark street with his hands in his pockets. In true New York fashion, no one paid him any mind. Certainly no one paid Steve any mind, and the flow of people made it difficult to stay at Stark’s side until Stark himself slowed his stride and pushed over toward the buildings until it was too tight for others to edge past. Steve, however, fit neatly into the space between Stark and the walls. He’d never been glad for his narrow shoulders before. 

A couple blocks and the next turn dumped them into the square below Stark Tower, surprising Steve unduly. He looked up and up at the glittering building, his mouth open, until it became apparent that Stark was watching him again.

Shit, this was _really happening._ He was really… really calling it a night with Tony Stark. And what Stark meant to do with Steve and this night was abundantly clear. It was enough to seize at Steve’s lungs like the asthma did. No way. No way would Tony Stark want this with someone like him.

“Too glitterati for you?”

Yes, probably, but… there weren’t enough words for the nuance here, the difference between Stark and the fat cats of the world. Wordlessly, Steve shook his head.

In the low light from the street lamps, Stark smiled. It was fucking gorgeous. He cocked his head and began to walk again, and Steve followed him like a puppy through the ridiculously silent sliding glass doors, past a man at the front desk who waved pleasantly to Stark as they went by, into an elevator that was probably made out of gold plate and diamond dust for the shine of it.

“Home, Jeeves,” Stark said once the doors had closed.

“Welcome back, sir,” said a cultured British voice from absolutely nowhere, and the elevator glided upward.

“Jeeves?” Steve’s voice sounded like a teenage boy’s.

“Jarvis, if I may,” said the voice again, making him jump. “And you are most welcome to the Tower, Steven Rogers.”

“Facial recognition,” Stark murmured before Steve could react, an aside that the… AI, Steve guessed, could obviously hear. “He’s protective of me.”

“Quite,” sniffed the voice, and then it fell silent for the remainder of the ride. Steve was glad to get out of there.

Unfortunately, ‘home’ wasn’t any less intimidating. Stark’s penthouse was as sleek and toned as the man himself, a fact that Steve was becoming only too well acquainted with, having walked directly behind Stark for a good portion of the trip. And like Stark himself, the apartment had touches of dishevelment: a coat dropped unevenly over the wide swath of breakfast bar, an empty tumbler catching the light from beside the sink, a row of decanters, flagons, and flasks in various stages of emptiness at the wet bar in the corner. It looked inhabited but not loved, clean but not cared for. 

That last was an unsettling analogy, when he applied it to Stark himself. 

Stark didn’t bother with niceties: no offers of a nightcap, no small talk. He led the way through the open kitchen and sitting area, down a gently lit hall and into a massive bedroom with a bed to fit. Steve’s feet stilled when he saw it, the bedding only slightly rumpled, the pillows strewn a bit near the head, as though Stark had slept atop the covers and rolled out of it only minutes before. Heat rushed down into Steve’s belly, then further at the idea of pressing his face into one of those pillows, inhaling Stark’s cologne.

Stark slung his tie away into the recesses of the room and toed off his shoes, then stood before Steve with his bare toes sunken into the carpet. His eyelashes were obscenely long. “Steven Rogers, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Jarvis, windows.” The windows darkened immediately, the city still glimmering beyond, but muted. Simultaneously, the room’s lights softened. With a gesture that was so natural it caught at Steve’s throat, Stark reached out and drew him closer, fingers cupped beneath his elbow. He slid his hands under Steve’s jacket, easing it off his shoulders. Much more attentively than he had with his own tie, Stark laid the jacket over the armchair beside them. 

“That’s amazing,” Steve breathed, referring to the windows, distracted by the overwhelming nearness of Tony Stark in this subtle light. Stark’s fingers tripped up his spine, starting low enough to send goosebumps over Steve’s arms.

“Hm.” Stark leaned in, tilted his nose a hairsbreadth from Steve’s temple, moved down to his cheek. Steve’s heart hammered in his throat, at the knowledge that Stark was scenting him and seemed to like it. “Steve okay?”

He nodded. His voice had taken a hike.

“Well, Steve,” Stark murmured, right at his ear. “What do you like?”

“Sta…” Steve stopped, feeling like an idiot. He couldn’t very well call him by his last name.

“Tony,” Stark said after a moment. He smelled like fresh air and citrus, just a hint of gin. He brushed his mouth over Steve’s, the lightest and most tempting of touches.

_Bucky will never believe this,_ was Steve’s last thought before Stark—Tony—kissed him for real.

Steve lost track of time, of the carpet beneath his feet and the room around him, of everything that wasn’t the sweet suckle of Tony’s mouth on his. Tony kissed without hurry, seeking out every inch of Steve’s mouth, his lips, his tongue, like he was tracing his fingers over the contours of a relief map. And yet he was full of movement, a fact that became abundantly clear when Steve found himself without shirt, without belt, with his shoes missing and his pants unbuttoned, and he had a moment trying to remember which underwear he’d chosen—god, he had _not_ anticipated anything like this when he’d climbed out of the shower after work—and then Tony’s belt clinked apart under his own fingers, and Steve pulled it out in a long sweep that arced Tony’s hips right into his. Steve dropped the belt and forgot about it, overcome by the track of Tony’s hands through his hair, down his throat, chest, belly, curving round to his hips to push his pants away. Steve stepped out of them, backing up a little to do so. He grabbed them off the floor with a shaking hand and slung them after his jacket. Tony made a sound low in his throat and Steve was so glad he’d worn the black boxer briefs after all.

Those hands, on his ass. Steve had never been held there with any finesse, squeezed slowly and firmly, rubbed down and up and back down again like his ass was something to be appreciated. Steve felt appreciated tonight, felt handsome and seductive. Tony’s mouth fixed upon his throat, his tongue a wet, drugging heat. Steve snarled his hands in Tony’s hair, couldn’t think what else to do with them, but _wanting_ to tangle his fingers and tug. He was so hard, overheated, the whole length of his body undoubtedly flushed red, and then Tony nudged him backward, their feet shuffling over the carpet until the backs of Steve’s knees bumped the bed and he dropped down onto a cool, lush duvet. Tony’s weight urged him back, pressed him down, and Steve scooted, and caught sight of a muscled shoulder where Tony’s shirt had slid off and a tensed, shadowed stomach, the bunching of Tony’s bare thigh as he climbed over Steve, and suddenly Steve was sober and blinking, surrounded by wealth and looking down at his skinny self, then up at Tony’s confident perfection, and Steve had an asthma attack right there on the bed, choking and heaving and, hell, that was their night, done for sure.

Except that Tony worked him through it, found his inhaler in their scattered clothes, knelt back on the bed and coached his breathing, rubbed his back. When it was over, Steve couldn’t meet Tony’s eyes.

“You alright?”

“Yeah.” Steve wiped his face. “Sorry. About that.”

“Don’t ever apologize for that. You can’t control that.”

Tony’s eyes were on him when Steve finally looked up, fixed and not going anywhere. It sent him breathless again.

“Thanks,” he said, and set his inhaler carefully on the bedside table next to a book with a weathered cover. _Cadillac Desert._ He touched it with his pinky. “You reading this?”

“Gift from a friend.” Tony sounded thoughtful, a little wistful. He smiled down at Steve. “Bucket list book. Promised her I’d give it a go.”

Bucket list? Steve went to kiss him again, but Tony halted them.

“What?” Steve asked, the lump growing in his throat.

Tony touched Steve’s face, slowly as though time didn’t matter. “You sure?”

Steve was sure. He wanted this tonight, he wanted this with Tony, and no stupid pulmonary problem was going to keep him from it if Tony was still game. 

“If you are,” he shot back, half-belligerent, daring Tony to do what everyone else inevitably did when faced with Steve’s brand of health issues.

Tony’s response was a filthy, turbulent kiss that left Steve gasping.

“Oh,” Tony whispered against Steve’s heaving mouth, “I’m sure.”

And was he ever. Steve had dreamed of being pressed back onto beds, surrounded by heat and strength and skill, urged down and kissed to within an inch of his life by someone who knew what he was doing, but this was utterly indescribable. Just sensation, whamming over and over: mouth, chest, the ticklish places under his ribs, the way Tony’s hips just rolled against his, locked into place, then shifted away, leaving Steve chasing after, building a rhythm. He struggled to get Tony’s shirt off, hands shaking, and then Tony stopped all movement and leaned up, looked down at himself the same way Steve had looked just moments ago, and that was when Steve noticed—

“What’s that?” Moleskin, or something like it, but much thinner and not fuzzy at all. More like—like silicone or latex stretching over the middle of Tony’s chest. Not flush, and just barely off his skin tone.

Tony didn’t say anything. After a moment, he curled his fingers under an edge somewhere and pulled the covering away completely to reveal—

“Oh, my god.” Steve struggled up onto his elbows. “What…”

“Magnet,” Tony said shortly. 

That was _not_ a magnet, that was… that was stunning blue and icy light, Steve would never capture that color properly with his pencils and paints if he tried for a year, _and he had tried for a year._

“I call it an arc reactor.”

“Same tech as Iron Man’s armor,” Steve breathed. He’d already attempted to duplicate it on canvas and paper both, but only at the ends of outstretched gauntlets, at the bottoms of metal boots. “Same as your green energy source.”

Tony nodded. “I have shrapnel in my heart.”

There was a good amount of scarring around the device. Steve frowned up at him. “From?”

Tony’s smirk was tight. “Mishap with a naysayer.”

The assassination attempt. Steve had known Tony Stark had been out of commission for a while after, hadn’t been much in the public eye, but he’d never realized… “And that?”

His fingers tripped off the silver housing of the _magnet_ onto warm flesh, where a strange spindle of darkness lay just under the skin. It looked almost purposeful, webbing spreading out in all directions, tiny stairsteps climbing Tony’s chest in mathematical right angles.

“Palladium. Arc reactor’s made of it. Weird metal, don’t bother looking it up, it’s boring as hell.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. “Somehow I doubt boring appeals to you.”

Tony stilled, then stroked his thumb down the side of Steve’s face. “No,” he said softly, eyes on Steve’s. “No, it doesn’t.”

Their lips touched again. Brushed. But still Steve’s hands traced the odd, inky lines over Tony’s chest. Still that ethereal blue light shadowed the planes of Tony’s face. Steve pulled away to look again, unable to stop, pushed Tony’s chest until he rose a bit and the arc reactor beamed pure light over their bare bodies. It had been completely hidden by whatever that covering had been, light, lines, all.

Tony grimaced. “It’s not catching. If it’s a deal breaker—”

“It’s not,” Steve said in a hurry, and Tony locked eyes with him, close enough that Steve felt Tony’s breath on his face. What in the world? There was no way this was a deal breaker when Steve’s attempt to swallow his own lungs hadn’t been. Steve tentatively touched the lines spidering away from the _wonder_ in Tony’s chest and swallowed. “I’m just sorry you have it.”

Tony’s eyes skipped over his face. Then he leaned down and kissed Steve’s mouth again, and they didn’t speak in any real way for a long time.

*

Maybe it would be better to say he took Steve apart.

Tony made love like he knew he might die tomorrow. Which, Steve was horrified to discover the next morning, was only too true. 

He stalked into the kitchen, only half dressed and waving his phone, his undershirt forgotten on Tony’s bedroom floor and his heart pulverizing in his chest. “Palladium _poisoning?”_

Tony, at the counter with his shirt from last night over his shoulders and a mug of coffee in hand, sighed. “Told you not to look it up.”

Steve brushed it off, fixed now on the ominous lines riddling Tony’s chest, but Tony deftly buttoned his shirt one-handed, leaving only that crisp blue light glowing through the fabric. He put his coffee down and reeled Steve in. “Too early for it,” he said, and kissed Steve long and deep.

They didn’t exactly make it back to the bed, and Tony kept his shirt on this time. Steve had never had sex on a kitchen counter before. When they were done, he sat where he was, his naked back against the cupboard with Tony leaning between his knees, and they drank out of the same mug, and Steve tried as hard as he could to avoid the steady pinching in his heart by bemoaning his tragically unfinished art degree, arguments that Tony shot down with incisive arrows.

“I mean, I can’t just petition for the rest of my degree anymore, it’s been too long. I’d have to actively take classes again.” 

“So take one.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that, okay? I have work, and I’m never in the headspace afterward, I just want to stare at the wall.”

“Steve,” Tony said, setting the mug aside for good and looking him hard in the eye. “Do you want it?”

Steve blinked at him. There were, at that moment, a lot of things he could say with certainty that he wanted. “I… Yeah.”

Tony nodded, and kissed him sharp and fast on the mouth. “Then _get_ it.”

It was a good morning.

After, as Steve tied his shoes and pulled on his coat, the uneasiness came flooding back. Somehow, Tony had gone from freshly debauched to completely put together in the time it had taken Steve to wash his face, and he waited, kicked back against the doorjamb with his ankles crossed and his hands in his pockets. His eyes still trailed Steve like he couldn’t be bothered not to, but there was a wall there that hadn’t been up the night before or even that morning when he brought Steve off squirming on the countertop and gasping into his mouth. Fully dressed now and missing the opposite, Steve hunched awkwardly in the middle of the bedroom, hands in his pockets too, wanting to get closer but no longer having the nerve.

Tony Stark was untouchable again, even though now Steve knew it wasn’t true, not just in terms of sex but in the most horrific of ways, the kind that seeped into your blood in deadly silence and wreaked an inexorable havoc. A clock ticking down.

The fragility of the night before, the ghostliness, made a lot more sense. And Steve was pretty sure he got it now, his presence in Tony’s bed at all, in Tony’s arms.

_Bucket list._

Still, Steve was a fighter. And Tony knew that now. 

“Are you doing anything? About that.” He gestured at Tony’s chest, at all that lay beneath his shirt. 

Tony smiled. It wasn’t the same smile as the ones he’d given Steve the night before. “Working on it.”

Steve could feel the dismissiveness, though, the fact that any work Tony had done in that direction had been lengthy and fruitless, and had since been abandoned. It stung, that he had been an end-days event, a one night stand for a fast and reckless life barreling swiftly toward the edge. _Had Tony even been attracted to him?_ he thought resentfully, but swept it away. He couldn’t think about that. It made his throat close up, his lungs squeeze, his whole body revolt, and he wasn’t going to have another asthma attack under the weight of Tony’s impassive eyes when Tony himself was done panicking about all of this.

Instead, Steve thought, what would the world do without Tony Stark?

He leaned in, risked closing a hand around Tony’s arm. Tony looked at it, then at Steve. 

“Fight,” Steve said, soft. “Fight this.”

He saw Tony’s expression fold right back out of concern into that distant indulgence, that _yeah, alright, okay_ that was only meant to placate, make others feel better about themselves and their efforts. Tony’s eyes wandered away, toward the now-bright windows and the sun high in the sky, his point obvious.

“Can I call you?” Steve didn’t know where it came from. A last-ditch effort. Another hope to hold on to.

And what was he expecting anyway? Tony’s rueful smile told him enough, that what he was asking was impossible.

“Okay.” Steve cleared his throat, shoved his hands in his pockets again. “Well. Thanks. I had… I had fun.”

“So did I.”

At the last second, Steve turned on his heel, went over to the counter where a pencil lay on a sprawl of what looked like armor diagrams—and that was a fight, to keep from drinking them in, filling in all the holes in his mind’s eye for whenever he drew Iron Man. He scribbled his cell number on the corner, then his name, _Steve,_ and put the pencil down again.

“Just, if you do want to talk.” He backed toward the elevator, nodded at the number that could so easily be erased. “Anytime.”

He lifted a hand, still in his coat pocket, then went into the elevator. Tony was still watching him when the door slid closed.

The walk home was a bit like being elbowed in the chest, knowing just where he’d been and with whom, but squinting up at his apartment building, at the clothes lines on its roof, and wondering how it had even _happened…_ He waved to Mr. Schroeder on the stairs and let himself into his apartment to the smell of buttermilk pancakes. He needed to vacuum, he thought, looking at all the dust motes in the sunlight from the window, and then Bucky leaned out of the kitchen, smirked as slow as molasses and said _oooh, someone_ got _some last night,_ and all Steve could do was shove his hands back into his pockets and smile.

~tbc~


	2. Chapter 2

_Now_

Eventually he needs to go out there. Out into the crowds, into the drinks and food and glitz, and see what all these people could possibly have to say about a cartoon by a kid from Brooklyn. Surely not much. He fingers the curtain and swallows the lump in his throat, stares through the crack and doesn’t see Tony anywhere.

“Steve, hold on a moment.”

Steve turns around, glad of the reprieve, to find Peggy approaching in her sharp red heels and vintage blue dress. She looks amazing, as she always does; tonight she’s topped off the ensemble with a hat to match her pumps and the effect is heady. If Steve hadn’t been hopelessly head over heels for a certain engineer—

She straightens his jacket and tucks a loose hair into place at his brow, then steps back, and only then does he notice that others have come into the ready room. He straightens up. “Oh.”

“This is Phil Coulson,” Peggy says, all business, and gestures toward an unassuming man in a trim black suit. Thin hair, pleasant face, wearing a friendly smile. “As it happens, an old friend of mine. Small world. He’d like to speak with you before you go out.”

Bewildered, Steve turns to him, offering a hand to shake. Coulson’s grip is firm. Steve likes him already.

“Can I say,” Coulson starts, patting the top of Steve’s hand with his free one as Peggy leaves them to it, “I’m a big fan.”

“Oh?” He flushes. He’s not used to getting compliments on his art.

“Followed your work in the Crown Heights Gazette.”

“Really?” The first neighborhood periodical that ever gave a rat’s ass about Steve, and Steve will always be beyond grateful. They’d hired him to copy edit, when he’d first had to leave art school and was hip-deep in debt and desperately looking for a job that would dig him out, and then started publishing his drawings in the extra spaces of every issue. He donated half his earnings from his first major commission to them so they could move their office out of the leaky warehouse they’d been struggling along in for the last four years. “Wow. Uh, thank you.”

“I’m glad to say I can now pay some of it back,” Coulson says, and lets his hand go, stepping back. The woman and the man behind him have not spoken. “I understand threats have been made?”

“Oh.” Steve waves it off, cheeks heating. “It’s nothing. Probably just, you know. Trolls.”

Coulson hums. “Probably. All the same, we’ll be accompanying you at all times tonight during the opening. Discretely, of course. This is Bobbi,” he says, indicating the woman, “and Clint.” The man behind her.

It dawns on Steve what exactly is going on. He makes a mental note to kill Bucky. “Seriously, guys. I don’t need bodyguards.”

“Stark Resilient begs to differ, Mr. Rogers.”

Stark Resilient? His heart leaps. _“Tony’s_ paying for you?” 

Bobbi, a tall woman with honey-blonde hair and a sequined dress that looks like it’s been painted on, raises an amused eyebrow. But Coulson simply holds out a crisply folded sheet of sketching paper. Steve recognizes it before it’s in his hand. His heart begins to thump as he carefully unfolds it. The creases are as neat as the day he first made them, the corners sharp and unspoilt.

He opens it onto firm pencil strokes and graceful curves, and shuts it again immediately, his face flaming. The drawing’s not even lewd but the _night_ he did it, what he was thinking about, the person he did it for—

He clears his throat. “Did you look at this?”

“Above my paygrade,” Coulson says simply.

Steve chances a glance at Bobbi, who scrunches her pert nose at him and smirks.

“Okay, well.” He shoves the drawing into his pocket, face still all afire, and looks around. Peggy passes a glass of ice water into his hand. And then suddenly Bucky is back, at his side and looking askance at the others, his… bodyguards, sheesh. 

But Tony. His heart warms. 

“Okay,” he says again, and exhales. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

*

_Then_

He let it go surprisingly easily, for him.

Of course the world without Tony Stark would be worse off. But Steve knew it wasn’t his business. Not in the sense of embracing tunnel vision, but because it wasn’t his business trying to change how another fully grown adult lived his life. Tony Stark was a smart man (understatement), a resourceful man, and above all, a disgustingly wealthy man. If he’d already thrown in the towel—if he said it couldn’t be done—well, Steve knew his own limits, physical, mental, especially emotional. He’d had them beaten into his head by half of Brooklyn, and he knew he couldn’t let himself get too deep this time. Tony had given Steve a hell of a memory, and Steve had liked it—liked him, even—and then their lives had parted ways and things moved on.

Three days later, Steve looked up in Times Square and saw Tony on a digital billboard, and it all slammed into him at once, like a truck careening into a wall. In seconds, his lungs had seized up; he spent five minutes backed against a building, hands braced on his knees and waving away passersby, gasping and swallowing and staring down at the filthy sidewalk because—

God. Tony.

His eyes stung. He couldn’t stop remembering the way Tony had touched his face in the bar. Cradled his elbow in the bedroom. Drawn him in. 

It still wasn’t Steve’s business, wasn’t his problem, and you couldn’t really help people who didn’t want your help. But it didn’t matter: the idea of Tony dead made him physically ill. 

It had long been established that Steve _couldn’t_ leave well enough alone. Genetic incapability, Bucky called it, usually with his mouth full of popcorn or Red Hots as he waxed on about the trials of living with his very own Brother Theresa, only with more fisticuffs. 

In truth, Steve had one talent that he never questioned, even if the comics world did, and it wasn’t hard at all to find Stark Resilient’s general mailing address. He knew next to nothing about Tony. Of course Tony had friends. Surely. Still, he couldn’t shake it, this sense of Tony dying and thinking nobody cared.

Just once, he promised himself. 

He did a good job on it, broke out his nicest paper and the oil pastels his ma had gifted him when he graduated high school. He finished in a week—the summer nights were too hot to sleep anyway, and the traffic sounds were soothing through the open window as he blended and shaded, as the picture in his head took shape in crimson and gold over a backdrop of delirious blue.

Given Tony’s reaction that night, the subject was a gambit. Steve only thought that he wanted Tony to feel pride in something he’d accomplished. To witness the emotion it prompted in others.

He sprang for a hardy poster tube, rolled the finished product up, sent it off and called it good, and then the next week he found himself bent over his sketchbook again in the dead of night, the portable fans making little difference to the sweat sliding from his temples, and his tank top plastered to his back as his fingers flew over a fresh sheet of paper. Reds and golds. Life.

He tried his hand yet again at that piercing repulsor light. Got closer to the truth of it. He sent that one off, too, with a scrawl on the back using one of his charcoal pencils: _You are worth saving._

Tony was unlikely to notice. They’d probably all get thrown out. Or Steve would get a bunch of algorithm-generated letters with a stamp of Tony’s signature at the bottom. Well, whatever; at least he was doing something, and that made all the difference to how he slept at night, so to speak. 

*

Days passed. Weeks. He kept holding his breath. Waiting for the sound-byte, the morning he’d wake up to learn that Tony Stark was gone, had succumbed. 

During daylight hours, it barely resounded against the daily grind. He didn’t have time to think that much about it. Nighttime was another story. At night, it crept, jumped, flowed out through his ink-and-oil stained fingers onto sheet after sheet, until he collapsed into his bed in a daze. It got so bad he started grinding his teeth when he slept, prompting Bucky to shuffle into his room and bat him awake at godawful o’clock using the sketchbook Steve had been clutching to his chest, until he finally went to the dentist and was fitted for an occlusal guard.

But the bad news never came. Tony was always there, plastered across the news sites, and every so often, Iron Man would roar across the sky overhead, heading in or out of Stark Tower to guard his charge, and Steve would just stop and watch.

*

Tony called him exactly once, and it was a mistake.

“This is a mistake,” Tony said, a beat after Steve answered. It was actually quiet outside, that stretch when the city sank into a stupor and the darkness seemed endless. He sounded drunk, and sad, and done in a way that jammed into Steve’s chest and knocked the words loose.

“I’m in an art class,” Steve blurted, the first thing that entered his mind, something, _anything_ to keep Tony talking. If Tony hung up, Steve had no idea what the man might do.

For a moment, Tony’s breathing was the only sound. Steve swallowed. “It’s a shading class. Helping me with my stippling.”

“That’s great, Steve,” Tony said quietly. Cautious, and a little bit curious. “I’m glad.”

“A gallery in Bed-Stuy runs it. Little one, off Hancock, but I can get credits for the Art Institute. Tuesday evenings. The teacher, he owns the gallery, and he has bad arthritis so he can’t really demonstrate, but the way he explains things—” Steve could have listened to his art teacher forever. He talked on into the expectant silence, about pencils and delicate gray lead, rutted paper and beat up old easels, because in all the darkness he’d begun to make out behind the bright lights of Tony’s life, all the weapons and deaths and things the media would never let him forget…this was also something good Tony had done, and whatever else, Steve wanted to give it back to him. Make him see. “That’s because of you, that I’m in the class,” he finishes on a deep breath. “You made it happen.”

Tony huffed. “Pretty sure you’re the one who did that.”

“Because you told me to. To get off my ass and go for what interests me.”

“I… don’t think I used those exact words—”

_“Tony,”_ Steve said heavily, and Tony went quiet again. This time, they breathed together, in sync. _How are you really? Are you alright?_ He couldn’t. They’d had sex once, and that didn’t make it his business. Steve blinked sudden moisture away from his eyes and, between one heartbeat and the next, decided to just let go. “Whatever you’re thinking. You’re important. To me.” It was too much anyway, saying this after nearly half a year. At the same time, it was coming frighteningly late. “You matter.”

“I shouldn’t,” Tony said after a moment. It was not disparaging so much as frank, a truth Tony had long accepted. “I’m just, shit, I’m selfish, I mean, what the hell am I doing? It’s three AM and I’m _calling_ you. God, I’m such a mess of a human being. The whole world knows me but no one wants to _know_ me, and for good reason.” He sighed. “I’m not worth all this, Steve. I’m just—”

“Hey. I am the only one who decides what you’re worth to me.”

Tony’s pause at that was loaded with the unspoken.

So Steve started sending art every day. Just doodles, a sketch here and there on a paper scrap, on a post-it, when he caught himself thinking of Tony, which was often. Not just Iron Man. Much as before, Tony hardly ever responded, but Steve could almost feel the weight of his regard on the work sealed into crisp envelopes. He didn’t know how, or if it was even real. Just a feeling.

And he wrote things. Not just one-liners, entire paragraphs, whole missives like diary entries, just letting his fingers talk to Tony. He doubted any of it would be read, but it rushed out of him in great heaves, all the thoughts that thinking about Tony dug up. Things he never would have said out loud in person, but something about writing it was easier. More honest.

~

_My friend went to war, you know? He came back with no arm, and he’s got a prosthetic now. He cooks pancakes for us every Sunday, we live together, <strike>and he just</strike> I was 4-F. The asthma, and scoliosis. I don’t hear so well in my one ear. I wonder what it would be like if I were bigger. Just, stronger. I could have fought, like him. Maybe he would still have his arm, maybe I could have made a difference._

_~_

_Fuck Stern. God, he just stomps all over everything. It’s worse because he sees us, he looks right at us, and he still does it. You know, I saw him the other day? In some dinner club uptown, and I was walking past and he was just there drinking a whole bottle of wine. There were girls at his side and even I could tell they were bored, they didn’t care, but he was there, so they were there. And he just tried to push that eight weeks bill through, thank god for Senator Walstrom, right? But Stern’s just laughing and patting those girls’ hands like their best friend. Like he knows everything they’re thinking. I mean, I don’t know what they were thinking, I’m not them, but I know what my ma would have thought about all this, and I know what my neighbor Sharon thinks._

_~_

_Sorry for the missed days. I got arrested again. <strike>It’s not a big de</strike> Things got a little out of hand in front of the Supreme Court this weekend. <strike>You probably already</strike> But we weren’t the ones who got violent and I didn’t have to pay bail, thank god. They let us all out with a slap on the wrist, even me, <strike>and I have a rec </strike> and I have a record. Don’t think badly of me for that. It was always for a good cause. I guess someone had a twinge of conscience, though. Anyway, here are three drawings to make up for it. Yes, one of them’s on a jail commissary napkin. It was lunchtime and I had limited options, don’t judge me._

_~_

_I hope you’re well._

~tbc~


	3. Chapter 3

_Now_

There is an honest to god king in the gallery. 

A king. Of a country. A country that, incidentally, has no love for the current American administration—join the club—and Steve hadn’t even known he was talking to royalty when he started, he’d just meandered over to the most uncomfortable-looking person in the room (besides himself, of course) and tried to make the guy feel less out of place.

Turns out the guy’s sister (the _princess,_ holy mother Mary) is an even worse troll than Bucky. Frankly, there’s not much Steve can do to counteract the precisely aimed jabs of a sibling. Sibling-adjunct, in Steve’s case. You just have to ride it out and try valiantly to hate them.

But King T’Challa _(king)_ is actually here for the art, is thinking of buying a piece, especially likes the warrior motifs Steve had been painting for months before anyone cared about his cartoons. They’re in the east room, a tribute to soldiers the world over from all different cultures and castes, the people who have sacrificed everything in the name of freedom, loyalty, and love. He’s asking some very good questions, Steve has never been so enthralled in talking about his inspirations for each piece, and then there’s a commotion at the front entrance and—

Steve is not ashamed to say that he plonks his wine flute right onto T’Challa’s plate. He’s not about to feel shame over something he can’t really remember doing. He leaves the conversation, too, right in the middle of a question because _there he is._

Satiny black coat open over a white shirt and creamy vest, no tie at all, the collar is _wide open,_ like someone’s just pulled the tie off and flung into the back seat of a limo somewhere, and the coat’s buttons are wide and black, and his hair is paler than Steve remembers and curling at his nape, and there’s more gray in it now and he’s _beautiful—_

“Whoa, soldier.” A hand circles Steve’s arm, dragging him to a stop. Bucky, looking pained. “Let’s dial it down a notch, huh?”

“He came,” Steve says, eyes only for the fuss just inside the main doors. Tony smiles, easy and charming, and he looks so _good,_ no sign of ill health, just warm skin and bright eyes. And yeah, he’s looked pretty healthy on television lately, but Steve wasn’t born yesterday, he knows all about airbrushing. Seeing Tony now, in the flesh… He’s bulked up a little, almost indefinable but Steve’s artist eye knows what to look for. There’s muscle where there hadn’t been before. Tony’s shoulders are straight and back, his posture even more open than it usually is, and how did Steve ever miss just how closed down Tony had been that night at their bar, oh god, it’s not _their_ bar but Steve can’t stop thinking of it that way. Tony has always stood tall, but tonight he’s standing taller than ever. “Buck, he _came.”_

“Yeah,” Bucky snorts. “Thus the need for a casual meander and not a headlong plow through the crowd, you know?”

Steve stops short. When did he make it halfway across the gallery?

Bucky’s still talking. “…and political celebrity only gets you so far, Stevie. You’re not quite the caliber yet who can just ditch visiting royalty.”

Steve blushes. But it’s hard to be properly mortified when Tony is right there, so close after so long, glowing and laughing, looking the most relaxed Steve has ever seen him. His hair is disorderly like someone’s dragged their fingers through it repeatedly—Steve remembers that look, alright?—and Tony nods to the man talking to him, smirking like he’s got a secret.

He hasn’t come alone. There’s a svelte redhead beside him, with a thick, wavy bob and lipstick redder than Peggy’s. Steve doesn’t recognize her, but Tony’s known for bringing beautiful people everywhere with him, a different date for every event. Or maybe Steve just doesn’t pay attention, but anyway, they make a striking pair, what with her black cocktail dress and its glittery red belt, and she seems to know the people crowding them at the door by the way she smiles. Maybe that’s Tony’s former PA? The one who runs the company nowadays? No, Stark Resilient’s CEO is taller, taller even than Tony in publicity shots, and this woman is compact and curvy, and then Steve catches sight of himself in one of the artfully positioned mirrors and his step stutters.

He looks good, he guesses. This is his best suit and his hair is still behaving, lying over his brow—‘rakishly’ as Bucky had put it. Steve had his doubts. But he’d let his neighbor Sharon shape said hairstyle and trim his eyebrows a little, and everything was as clean and put together as it had been an hour ago when he’d fought his way through the crowds streaming into the subway. 

He looks as good as a struggling artist with faulty lungs, no muscle to speak of, and about six hundred dollars to his name can look.

He looks nothing like the woman on Tony’s arm. She’s lovely and demure, and she complements Tony perfectly and Steve is just… well, he’s _Steve._

Okay, but Tony never cared about any of that. And Steve’s going to have to shut his fish mouth and get out of the middle of the showroom before someone assumes he’s moved on to performance art.

Bucky prods his arm. “Aren’t you going to go talk to him?”

Steve jabs him back with an elbow. “Shut up! Five seconds ago you said I was being rude for trying.”

“That was before you got all soppy instead.” Bucky pops a tiny quiche into his mouth, chewing noisily. “Pretty off-putting, Rogers, I was just getting hungry.”

The reporters have all collected around Tony and his companion by now, pressing in with handheld recorders. Tony doesn’t seem perturbed in the slightest, nodding at each in turn, cocking his well-groomed head as he speaks to them. Nobody’s paying attention to Steve anymore.

“God, he’s gorgeous.” He can’t sum up just how gorgeous, how it goes so much deeper than a word, how it’s a whole body sort of health but also further than that, as though Tony’s very soul is calm, as though he’s found perfect happiness—

“Sure is, lover boy. I mean, damn, look at those ankles, and his bare _wrists,_ the nerve of him—”

Steve elbows Bucky hard, but he’s already lost again, staring. A new burst of motion erupts around Tony. Flashes go off in sudden strafes. Tony laughs, and good god, Steve is in love with that sound. He doesn’t know that he ever heard Tony laugh like that. And why should he have? Tony was dying when Steve spent his night with him, it was frankly amazing that Steve saw him smile at all.

The sudden series of dings is getting irritating. “Would you shut off your phone?” Steve snaps at Bucky. Never mind that it’s obviously not just Bucky’s phone. But Bucky’s is closest, and Steve can’t just tell Zara Beard to turn off her text notifications, can he?

“Uh,” Bucky says, staring at his phone’s screen. He lifts his eyes to Steve just as Steve’s phone goes off, too, buzzing away.

“For god’s sake.” Steve wrestles it out of his pocket, frowning, but Bucky grabs it out of his hand. Steve gapes at him. The clamor at the front entrance is getting louder, the flashbulbs more frequent. People are pushing closer around them, muttering to each other. “Give it back.”

“Just ignore it,” Bucky says, too fast, but Buck’s always been that indoor cat that escapes out the front door and then stops on the mat, so happy to have made it out that he forgets to follow through: Steve snatches his phone back with one grab. “Steve, wait—”

It’s a Google notification. He doesn’t use them but he’d turned them on tonight, set them to let him know about the comings and goings of one Tony Stark, and so far it’s been pretty quiet, just the occasional jiggle in his pocket. But this one is brand new, featuring a photo of Tony in the foyer of this very gallery, where he stands right this second, his arm linked with the date at his side, laughing and kissing the woman’s cheek.

_ **TONY STARK: ENGAGED!!!!**_

Steve’s stomach drops right out of him.

*

_Three weeks ago_

Ellen DeGeneres smiled. It had been clear from the beginning of the interview that she was fond. “So. A whole year sober.”

Tony chuckled. His legs were crossed, and he sat in the easy chair like he owned it. Steve leaned close to the screen and drank it in. “New record for me.”

“Congratulations,” Ellen said. “You’ve had quite the year actually, with the green energy initiative, the lighting of the tower. Before that, your health scare.”

Tony’s smile twitched. But he had his glasses off, passed idly back and forth between his hands, and that was one layer of armor lowered. “Been eventful. But rewarding.”

Ellen high-fived him. “We’ve known each other for a long time.”

“Yes, we have.”

“And I know you’ve battled with addiction for an even longer time. And that you’re very open about that.” Yes, they knew each other; Steve doubted any reporter or other host would have been allowed to ask Tony Stark such questions. He wondered what it was like, knowing someone like Ellen.

“I’ve been around this block a few times.”

Ellen tilted her head, smile growing. “Yeah, but all of a sudden, you got super serious about it. There’s something different this time.”

Tony raised his eyebrows, far too innocent. “How so?”

“You’re calm, relaxed. Happy. Tony, what gives?”

The studio audience got very quiet, and Tony smiled down at his hands before clearing his throat. “I’m doing this for me, of course. It’s the only way to truly kick habits like mine. But… Well, there’s also someone that I’d really…” Tony drew a visible breath. “Really like to be proud of me.”

Steve’s heart skipped a beat.

He spent the day talking himself out of it. Ridiculous. Impossible. All kinds of words, and by dinner, he mostly had himself convinced. But there was still that glimmer inside that shivered at the novelty, the gut-deep certainty that he was right about this.

*

_Now_

Natalie Rushman. That’s her name.

It’s pretty, like she is. Rolls off the tongue. She has a nice smile, full lips and pleasant, rounded cheeks. Her eyes dance, even in the photos. There’s a rock the size of Gibraltar on her finger, a glistering diamond set in curlicues of gold and other inset stones. There are even more pictures of it now than there are of her.

Everything’s a muffled haze. He feels Bucky pulling on his arm, but it’s muted, somewhere beyond him. There, straight through the crowd as though they’ve opened up for Steve’s benefit, stands Tony, flashbulbs still clicking away. On the periphery, people giggle and coo together, holding their phones up to get pictures, and Tony’s hand slides gently up and down the small of Natalie’s back, thumb brushing at the skin revealed at the dip of her dress.

By the time Steve crosses the distance, they have parted, Natalie laughing animatedly with one of the reporters while Tony takes a cocktail glass off a tray. Non-alcoholic, Steve’s one demand for the evening because Tony—Tony was a year sober. Tony didn’t drink anymore, and Steve knew from growing up with his dad the difficulties of having temptation within easy reach.

He doesn’t know what he plans to do. He just wants to touch him. See if he, if this, is real.

But Tony sees him before he can get there.

And Tony just lights up. _That_ makes Steve stumble: the interest in Tony’s wide eyes, the sweet upward curl of his lips. He looks coltish, unbothered, and again it’s like something tight has been released in Tony. He moves toward Steve, hand coming to Steve’s elbow so like it had in the solitude his penthouse suite, fingers cradling. He pays no mind to the reporter he’s just left in the dust.

Steve shakes Tony’s hand off. _“Engaged?”_

The joy falls off Tony’s face. He purses his lips. “Steve.”

“How long?” He gestures, not even bothering to keep his voice down. The part of him that cared about that kind of thing is lying stunned in the corner, trying to catch its breath. Engagement. Sex, sure, but marriage? Marriage would take time for someone like Tony to build toward, both outwardly and inwardly, and commitment has never been in his wheel-well before. So many interviews, socialites left to wake alone in lavish beds, dressing in the previous night’s clothing, ushered out by the hired help. Steve had heard the tales, read the variety pages, and thought with a secret, enduring warmth: _I wasn’t ushered out. I didn’t wake up alone._

But it had been one night. One. Tony never recrossed bridges, never repeated dates with any of them. Why Steve had never applied the rules to himself, he now has no idea. And he should have. Why did he think he was different? Special?

He’s a damn fool.

“It’s not what you think,” Tony hisses.

“What I think isn’t all that complicated,” Steve hisses back. He’d thought, he’d let himself think—but it’s her Tony wanted to make proud. His fiancé. Of course it’s not Steve. God, he’s appalled at himself. He has no right, no right at all. He never would have dreamed of behaving like this, before Tony.

_All it takes is one night,_ the nasty little voice pipes up, the one he’s been trying to leave behind for years. _One beautiful person to feed you a line, and you’re gone._

He’d never really needed to have any one night stands to know he wouldn’t be good at them. He knew himself, even meeting Tony’s eyes in that bar, even going home with Tony, to his penthouse, his world, his bed: _this is not you, Steve._ He’d just thought he’d try it. Try it and see if maybe he was wrong. But he knew himself them, and he knows himself now, how attached he gets, how invested, how the idea of having someone and then letting them go always felt like pulling a part of himself free and leaving it behind.

He should never have let this happen, but it’s too late.

All that art. All those notes, those confessions, all that hope… It’s not a logical thought progression, it’s frighteningly close to a possessiveness he’s always despised, but Steve can’t help it. He may be skinny and frail, but he’s been done taking shit from the bullies of the world for years, and he’s not about to take the same now. To hell with Tony. It’s on the tip of Steve’s tongue to say it all for every reporter to hear, and he opens his mouth—

But his insides wither at the very thought. He can’t do that to Tony. He’s _seen_ people do that to Tony, and he’s seen what Tony’s face does when they do.

“You could have said.” His voice is dangerously cracked; he tries to swallow. “Something.” A letter. Hell, a text. God, what is he doing? He doesn’t own Tony Stark! He has no claim on him whatsoever, in fact, and doesn’t that hurt like a bitch? But he’d thought… He’d...

“Steve,” Tony says, in that tone that even now sends heat through Steve’s belly. “I swear to you, this isn’t what it seems. There’s a point to this, please, _please_ give me the time to explain.”

“So, explain.” To his horror, his eyes are welling up, burning at the edges, and Tony’s eyes grow wider as they dart over Steve’s face. “I got no other plans tonight.”

Tony’s eyes glimmer, a zip of shock that runs up Steve’s spine. “I can’t yet. I can’t. But, Steve, there’s something… Something I have to tell you.” His hands are back, sliding up Steve’s arms, and it’s comforting and devastating at the exact same time, and all of a sudden the windows of the gallery just _explode._

~tbc~


	4. Chapter 4

It’s startling, to say the least. Steve’s ears ring, thick and cottony, and then Tony’s grip vises around his arm, jerking Steve behind him. Steve shields his eyes, and when he looks up, the waiter to his right has flung down his tray and is stretching out his arm, a cold, black gun clutched in one hand. 

The blonde bodyguard is there just in time. She kicks high, snapping the gun out of the waiter’s grip, then floors him with the downward swing, hammering her heel into his shoulder. 

Sound swoops back with a whine; Tony plasters himself to Steve’s front, facing away from him, one hand seized back at Steve’s hip, the other extended out in front of him where Steve can’t see. A whine, a different sort of concussive boom, and piercing blue light blasts out before them. 

A burst of screaming has Steve turning to find yet another waiter, another gun. Steve grabs the first thing he sees: a round metal sculpture the size of a wagon wheel and a permanent display in the gallery’s entrance, and flings it up between them. The bullets hit, knocking him back into Tony. Steve tumbles in a heap.

Whine. Boom. Then hands, all over him. _“Steve!_ Are you hit?”

“N…” He looks down at himself, at his hands and Tony’s pressing together over his nice, white dress shirt. White. No blood. No pain. He looks up, meets Tony’s terrified eyes. “No?” 

Damned if he knows why not.

“Everybody down!” Coulson orders, gun trained with casual skill on one waiter, then another, another, clipping them to the ground with shots to the knees. Across the hall, the guy who had been with Coulson earlier—Clint?—has pulled out an honest-to-god bow and is—is shooting people with some kind of taser things. Before Steve can react to _that,_ someone races past him, kick-flipping up the front of a reporter’s body, black beadwork and red hair, and then the reporter is tumbling in a tangle, losing hold of his gun. Strong legs lock tight around his neck and an elbow comes down repeatedly into his face. 

Steve squints, mouth open. “Natalie Rushman?”

The ominous click of a chamber loading draws his head around. A gallery visitor in an opulent gray suit, far too close, has Steve at point blank. He sneers, and Steve draws a ragged breath. 

And Tony is there, between them. Steve’s throat seizes, but red and gold fill his vision, sliding over Tony’s torso so fast Steve can’t parse it. The gun goes off. Tony snarls, then raises his now-gauntleted—_gauntleted?!_—hand and lets loose with another whine, a repulsor blast right to the man’s chest.

The man flies across the room into the far wall, knocking into the largest canvas of Iron Man. He flops to the ground, then shakes his head and gets to his knees. He raises the gun at Steve with an unsteady hand. 

With a groan, the canvas topples off the wall and knocks the guy clean out.

The room is in an uproar. The king and the princess are—well, there are gunmen crumpled at their feet looking the worse for wear. Peggy, absolutely fit to be tied, is ranting into a phone at the police; Coulson, Bobbi, and Clint have made quick work of the assailants they put down; Natalie Rushman is coolly tying her hair back with an elastic bracelet from somewhere, one spiky heel digging into the throat of her cowed reporter. Cooper Anderson is helping scared people off the floor, and the socialites are either loudly proclaiming their close brushes with death or snapchatting about it. 

Bucky pushes through the crowd to Steve’s side. “Steve!”

“I’m good,” Steve manages as Bucky drags him to his feet. With all the noise, all the chaos around him, he’s having a difficult time looking anywhere but at—at—

“Tony?” he breathes.

Tony, in suit and coat no longer. Tony, covered shoulders to toes in glinting gold and rich red, a good foot taller than usual. The only thing that’s missing is the helmet.

Steve’s jaw works, words, sense, thought evading him. He gapes at Tony Stark, genius billionaire superhero philanthropist. “You’re Iron Man.”

Tony smiles, tentative. His gauntleted hand squeezes gently around Steve’s arm. “If that’s what you need today, then yes. Yes, I am.”

“Is that…” Steve sways. Swallows. “That what you had to tell me?”

Tony shakes his head. “No. I mean, yes, but. Look, you told me once that I was worth saving.”

Did he? Yes, he did. But he hadn’t known about this, hadn’t known just how truly worth saving Tony was, how, how _everything_ Tony was, it’s mind-boggling. A real live superhero, who is so far out of the reach of Steven Grant Rogers, recently unknown editorial cartoonist from Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

And Tony’s still talking.

“You also told me that I didn’t get to decide what I was worth to you.” He takes Steve’s arms, his grip careful even with the gauntlets, the suit that, shit, Steve can see bullet pocks, ricochet marks marring the finish, slowly being burnished away as he watches. “And I was too chicken shit to return the favor. But I’ve been thinking about it ever since. It’s high time I made good.” 

Steve blushes, hunching his shoulders. “That’s okay. I mean, I’m not—” He laughs, high-pitched, and waves his hand down the armored suit and the man inside it, the bravery, the selflessness of throwing oneself in front of a hail of bullets, the heretofore unknown glory that is Anthony Edward Stark. “I’m not really—”

Tony shakes his head, gives him a little shake, too. “No, listen. _You_ don’t get to decide what you are worth to _me._ You are worth pain, and patience, and disappointment, and the hardest work I have ever done. And years, god, you are worth so many years. You are worth sobriety, and being a better person. You’re worth the possibility of not having you, that you might never want me back again. _Everything,_ Steve. That’s what you’re worth to me.”

Steve lurches forward, throws his arms around Tony, and kisses him on the mouth as hard as he can. It’s needy. It’s unformed. It probably looks absurd. Steve can’t get enough.

But Tony sweeps him right up: leans back and lifts Steve off his feet and kisses him like Steve is the air he breathes now.

“I’m sorry,” Tony gets out between kisses. He tastes like orange juice and seltzer water. “M’sorry, I should’ve told you.”

Steve laughs, and he could have felt like such an idiot for drawing all those Iron Men, sending them off in tubes and neatly sealed manila envelopes to Iron Man himself none the wiser, but amidst the shouts and hollers of _Mr. Stark! Mr. Stark!_ he just feels elated. Struck through the heart with an arrow of light, and proud of what he drew for Tony, what he sent.

“So does this mean you’re not engaged to Ms. Rushman?”

Reporters, surrounding them like sharks, broadcasting all of this. Steve reddens, turns his face against Tony’s cheek and squeezes him tighter, but the suit of armor makes it hard, unforgiving under even his fiercest grip.

Before he can blink, the suit melts away—he has no idea where it goes—and Tony, dressed again in formal black and white, is warm and solid against him. Steve tilts his head back and searches Tony’s eyes. Tony is searching his right back.

“Never was,” Tony says to the reporter without taking his eyes off Steve. “Never could be.”

“Never?” Steve asks.

“Not while you’re around,” Tony finishes, right next to Steve’s ear. Steve’s lungs fight with his heart for room in his ribcage. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, stroking the warm skin at Tony’s nape.

“But Mr. Stark—”

“It’s called a ruse,” Natalie Rushman cuts in, appearing at the reporter’s shoulder and making him jump. “To get the media’s attention off Rogers and draw them out.”

“Them?” Steve turns to Tony. “I was bait?”

“Against strenuous objection,” Tony growls, glaring daggers at Rushman. She shrugs and taps an earpiece that Steve can barely see.

“You had him.”

“Ms. Rushman,” Coulson says, approaching from the left. He looks as put together as he did before, not a hair out of place, Steve would swear to it, except that not a minute ago he’d seen him kicking the crap out of… of…

“Who are they?”

Coulson smiles pleasantly. “Art critics.”

Steve blinks, inhales too deeply. Feels wheezing coming on. Those were… hit men? Because of his stupid cartoon? He’s going to need to sit down, put his head between his knees. He’s been in trouble before, but this is a whole new ballgame.

Fingers slide gently down his nape, up and down his back, the slow, echoing track of a single night ages ago. His inhaler finds its way into his hand. Steve takes a pull, and Tony’s touch continues without hitch.

When he’s not about to panic anymore, Steve takes it all in, truly, for the first time. Lets himself look at the angles he hadn’t seen before. “You knew about the threats.”

Tony nods. His cheeks redden, but he doesn’t look away. “Might have been nothing. Wasn’t sure enough to risk it.”

“You did this?” He sweeps a hand, meaning the bodyguards, the ruse, the blockade outside—hell, his ongoing _life._ This took time, planning, money. “For me.”

Tony squeezes him tighter. His smile is luminous. “I wanted to be worthy of you.”

He’s not talking about what Steve’s talking about. Steve thinks about palladium poisoning, about non-alcoholic drinks and a resolve made of iron. Awed, he cradles Tony’s face, strokes his jaw with his thumb and threads his fingers through soft, soft hair. “You were, Tony. You _are.”_

Tony’s brown eyes are a hell of a lot deeper, the look in them more painful, than Steve ever knew.

“I love you, Steve Rogers,” Tony says, soft between them. Just for him. His eyes flicker. “What do you say?”

“Tony.” Steve smiles, helpless. “I sent you paintings. You’ve got me.”

~  
~  
~

_ **TONY STARK: IRON MAN AND IN LOVE!** _

_ **…** _

_ **MOVE OVER, GOLIATH: MODERN DAY DAVID PACKS AN IRON PUNCH** _

~fin~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it! ishipallthings, it was a pleasure. Thanks for the prompt that led to my very first tiny!Steve fic. ^_^
> 
> Thank you sososososo much to coffeejunkii for cheerfully betaing!


End file.
